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Cool photo

I don't know how kosher it is to post a copyrighted photo on a blog, but since this isn't exactly an enterprise of any sort, I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

A former co-worker of mine, Troy Boman, just sent me a link to a photo of his that won a second-place award from the National Press Photographers Association. It's impressive because Troy works for a small community newspaper that covers a massive sprawl of salt and sand known as Tooele County, Utah - and he was up against big guys like the New York Daily News in this contest. I always thought it was kind of strange that Troy didn't move up to the big guys. He's always had this amazing ability to capture striking moments of clarity in the vast and mundane ... the face of a terrified boy standing amid an indifferent crowd ... the calm acceptance of a once-comfortable man suddenly doused in the mud and blood of his own mistakes. It's very real. I really like this photo.

Today I rode some sprint intervals ... full-out, red-in-the-face, I'd-puke-if-I-went-much-harder intervals. Tough to do, but definitely worthwhile. I rode a 3-mile stretch of bike path with a fierce north wind. I did 1.5 miles of with-the-wind warm-up, 1.5 miles of tailwind sprinting, 1.5 miles of headwind recovery, and 1.5 miles of headwind sprinting - times four. The tailwind sprints were wicked fun. I don't have a computer installed on my road bike yet, but I must have been pushing 35 mph, judging by my sustained place in traffic. The headwind sprints were like nothing I've experienced in a long time. I couldn't even hold back my wheezing gasps during vain attempts to not frighten the oncoming pedestrians. All I could do was chug by, trying to keep the donkey sounds to a minimum and locking my perma-grimace on the pavement. I thought about the virtues of drop handlebars ... may be a good purchase to make. But, for now, I'm thinking about buying a camera.

I often wonder why I love putting myself through this sort of pain/pleasure on the bike. I think Lance said it best:

People ask me why I ride my bike for six hours a day; what is the pleasure? The answer is that I don't do it for the pleasure. I do it for the pain. In my most painful moments on the bike, I am at my most self-aware and self-defining. There is a point in every race when a rider encounters the real opponent and realizes that it's...himself. You might say pain is my chosen way of exploring the human heart.

That pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it subsides. And when it does, something else takes its place, and that thing might be called a greater space for happiness. We have unrealized capacities that only emerge in crisis--capacities for enduring, for living, for hoping, for caring, for enjoying. Each time we overcome pain, I believe that we grow.

Cancer was the making of me: Through it I became a more compassionate, complete, and intelligent man, and therefore a more alive one. So that's why I ride, and why I ride hard. Because it makes me hurt, and so it makes me happy.

That's a great shot. The reason we practice is so that when opportunities to become great exist -- we will know what to do. Kudos to Troy Boman.

SO here's my take on the copyright issue. If you shoot the news -- you have a right to do it and it covered under the first amendment. His shot is covered and he can use it to report the news. If he wants to sell something he needs a release from the model.

Blogging is a more than a bit of Journalism. You are reporting the news -- If I shoot an image like of a bike race, and the arizona ddily grabs it off my site -- they can expect to get a phone call or sued.

However, if your use is academic -- which it is -- it's all history, and it's free. Thanks for teaching all us practicing photographers how to get it right.

I think the pain reminds us that we are really alive. And that's why it feels good.

Ever since the 1999 DMCA, there's really no such legal category such as 'fair use,' at least not in the academic sense. This has made it a lot harder (read: more expensive for my students) to put together course packets of published work.

But the DMCA is a crock of bullshit (academic fair use was very helpful and not at all predatory), so I say do whatever the hell you want so long you're working in good faith and with a clear conscience.